Deal with the DEVIL
The repair bay at the Forge looks more like an unclean asylum than a place of healing. The lights are dim, and none of the patients and medics here are the friendly sort. There's some kind of fluid leak in the ceiling, and the hum of cheap medical equipment is the pervading sound in this damp establishment. It can perhaps be described as a hellish hole of misery that no one wants to be in. In the far back of the repair bay is a section marked off with large red x's. And in a dim corner of this harshly marked off area is the familiar red and white form of Drift, hooked up to all sorts of tubes and life support. His brain module has been carefully extracted and is suspended above him in bag of diluted propex solution. Well! This is cozy! Hot Rod makes his way through the bay looking more than a little lost and out of place. He's hardly used to fancy new hospitals, so it can't simply be the setting. He weaves through the Forge on borrowed credit, there on sufferance, and is fairly well-behaved as a result. When he finds Drift far in the back and surrounded by some really encouraging red x's, he steps forward to the side of the bed and considers the laid-out form of his friend. Distress makes his tone a little sharp as he mutters, "You're a mess." He doesn't really seem to expect that Drift can hear him, because he doesn't wait for a reply before turning away to look for a chair. In this case, that might mean a /crate/ to sit on, but whatever. You make do. Rod will notice too, that all the patients in this section are very recently dead. Well, isn't that wonderful, Drift is surrounded by dead people. And so is Hot Rod. Now that Hot Rod has sat down next to Drift, he'll be able to fully survey the damage his friend has suffered. Drift.. doesn't have a face. He is completely unrecognizable. A good three quarters of his helm is missing. And if it weren't for the spark monitor showing a tiny blip every few kliks, he would look like the rest of the patients in this section--dead. This section sucks. Hot Rod hates it. He looks strangely humbled as he studies Drift in between bursts of obvious frustration. His hands curl at his sides in some futile urge to act, to fix, to /do something/. "Hey, come on. What are you even doing here. We're supposed to be making things better, mech. Me and you, a better, brighter Cybertron?" He looks at the spark monitor without a face to study, unwilling to face the glaring vulnerability of Drift's extracted brain module. He twists, taking a look at the rest of the repair bay. WHY AREN'T THEY FIXING DRIFT. Drift doesn't respond. Is he even hearing Hot Rod? Not likely, but pep talk is good, even if it goes unheard, right? A con nurse meanders by the section marked off with large red x's and peers at Hot Rod momentarily, before sighing and shaking his helm. He then turns to leave. "Hey, wait." Hot Rod shifts, approaching two paces, but doesn't leave Drift's side. Standing at the foot of the bed, he rests his hand on Drift's ankle. He isn't looking at him, but at least he knows where he is this way. Who knows what else Drift might /somehow/ get up to without a watchful eye on him. "What's going on? Why's he back here? Why haven't they started putting him back together?" He starts nice and reasonably but ends a little pushy and demanding for someone who has pretty much no business being here. The con nurse just arches a brow ridge at Hot Rod. Hot Rod doesn't look like a Decepticon, so the nurse doesn't know how or why he's even here, but he humors him an answer anyway. "Uh, because there isn't really anything else we can do for him. His health status is too fragile for us to operate on him--plus, it's just a fraggin' waste of time and resources. His survival rate is somewhere in the 3-5 range. Sorry. He's gonna die. And even if he doesn't, chances are he'll just pretty much be limp and unresponsive for the rest of his life. Might as well just stop wasting your time." Hot Rod says 'okay' and walks out and that's how it goes IN NO UNIVERSE EVER. "Not going to happen. So what's that mean, his health status is too fragile, huh? Make it /less/ fragile. What do you need? Is it shanix? Mech's loaded: bounty hunter, big catches, awesome ship, everything. You need a fighter? He's the best. What's it going to take for you fraggers to start /making him better/?" One can't fault his passion, but his persuasion could use a little work. Or a lot of work. The nurse face palms. "Okay, look, I don't know what your educational background is but even someone who doesn't know slag about medicine could take one look at him and know that he just isn't going to make it. I mean /look/ at him!" He gestures wildly at the brain module suspended in the bag of diluted propex. We don't need fighters, we don't need shanix, he's a waste of time and effort, period. I don't know who you are, so just .. get lost. You're not a 'Con, you don't even belong here." He starts walking away. Well-behaved out the window, Hot Rod grabs the poor nurse by the arm so that he can't leave. "You said there's a chance! That means you have to try!" "Get. Lost," the nurse growls at Hot Rod. "Before I tell the Forge authorities there's an unauthorized civilian in here, causing trouble." He shakes Hot Rod's arm off, transforming and zooming out of the repair bay, leaving Hot Rod to think what he will. "Oh, so sad, isn't it?" A familiar voice suddenly addresses Hot Rod from behind. "How unfortunate." A devious laugh." Hot Rod thinks something completely rude, that's what he thinks, and has no trouble spitting it aloud after the nurse's exhaust, either. /Language/. He turns at the voice from behind with a quiver of tension that squares his shoulders and shivers right up to the tip of his spoiler. He does not look like he finds this funny. "What." The one addressing Hot Rod floats down. Looks like he'd been sitting up on the large windowsill just above the sectioned off area where Drift had been placed--funny how he'd just gone unnoticed. The red and white seeker grins at Hot Rod, and his optics gleam. "Too bad no one can do anything for your poor dear Drift--oh wait," he smirks, "nevermind, /I/ can. Funny how I have a habit of forgetting how /respected/ I am around here," Starscream notes. "Humility, ha, always biting me in the aft," he chuckles. "I must admit though, it would be nice to see him survive.." There's this look that people around Starscream sometimes tend to get, like they'd rather be driving their own face into a wall rather than continue the conversation. Yeah, /that look/. That's what Hot Rod looks like right now. It takes obvious effort for him to clear his expression, and even then irritation lingers. Why does Starscream keep having better entrances than him. Why does Starscream have to be such a -- /Starscream/. But seriously, why are his entrances always better. "You want to see him survive? Do it, then," Hot Rod says with a heated flash of sharp words. "What can you do that he can't?" "Oh, Hot Rod, /please/. I can do /anything/. Anything I please." He raises his hands up casually, gesturing grandiosely. "But.. only if I want to. Just because I think it would be nice doesn't mean I'll do it." He glances idly over at Drift, and in an instant, is by Drift's side, flicking the bag with his brain module in it. "Poor thing," he says derisively. "After all, all nice things have a price. And who's willing to pay?" he says dramatically, optics widening. Then he glances over at Hot Rod with a fox-like smirk. "He could be saved. If they tried. Really hard, and brought in outside resources. Of course, they won't.. unless /someone/ makes them." "Hey!" Hot Rod lunges to put himself between Starscream and Drift. No touchie. He crowds in, even if it means pushing Starscream back with the wedge of his shoulder. He doesn't even hesitate before demanding, "What will it take for you to /help him/?" And then Starscream simply flies up and away from Hot Rod, hovering over to the spark monitor and watching it with slight amusement. "Wouldn't you like to know," he teases flameboy, smirking. "But it looks like our interests somewhat align, since you're so desperately wanting him to survive and I--well, I think it would be kind of nice, so here's how this is going to go." Another quietly devious laugh. "I'm going to give you a little gift for the speedster. You know, the blue one, Blurr? It'll help him take life a little.. slower, if you know what I mean. If you give it to him soon, it should last as long as it takes for dear little Drift here to recover. Naturally, I'd just give it to him myself, but him and I aren't exactly on what you could call .. agreeable terms." "/Kind of nice/," Hot Rod hiss-spit-snarls. KIND OF NICE. He is not happy. He is Not Happy, with capital letters, but his options are few and far between. "What's it going to do to him?" he demands. "What do you mean, /slower/?" "Oh, Roddy, you should really stop asking questions. Don't you ever wonder why it is that you always get into /so/ much trouble?" The seeker laughs. "Do we have a deal or not? Because you know..." He yanks the plug on the life support machine Drift is hooked up to, making the spark monitor flatline. He gives the cable a playful twirl before plugging it back in a half a klik later. The spark monitor stays flatlined for several kliks before the blips start back up again, smaller than before, but nevertheless there. "Now, I'm sure you get the picture. Do me this one /little/ favor and he lives. Fail to follow through and well.. you'll be the one writing Drift's obituary." The only thing that keeps Hot Rod from lunging for the plug and yanking it out of Starscream's hands (or, you know, trying) is the fact that to do so he would have to go /over/ Drift, and Hot Rod can't fly. He's already spitting, "Deal," by the time Starscream is plugging it in, point made, and he takes in the rest with an unhappy glower. He folds his arms over his chest in blatantly defensive posturing. "Whatever has to be done, do it." As for his side of the bargain -- well, he'll figure something out. He smirks. "There's a good boy, I knew you'd agree." the seeker says, hovering a couple feet off the floor. "Oh, of course," Starscream chides Hot Rod. "Don't you /trust/ me? I always keep my side of the bargain." He opens his subspace compartment and takes out a small device that looks similar to a tracking bug, but the center of it is filled with some kind of liquid drug. "Attach this to him," he instructs. "And I'll do the rest. It cloaks, so Blurr shouldn't be able to find it." A devious pause. "And don't try anything funny, alright? I'm keeping close tabs on this device, I'll know if and when it's active and on Blurr." He hands it to Hot Rod just before jettisoning out of the repair bay smugly. "I'll be watching you," he calls in farewell to him just before he leaves. "Go choke on exhaust," Hot Rod mutters gratefully -- so gratefully! -- in Starscream's wake. He sinks back down once the seeker is gone to cast another look at Drift's monitors. He reaches for his hand and presses it just a moment saying, "You're going to be okay." And everything will be fine. And everyone will be great. And it will all work out. He'll leave soon, but for now he sits where he is, rolling the device in his palm. And amazingly, this time, Drift actually responds. He gives Hot Rod's hand a very faint and brief squeeze. Call it a reflex or coincidence, but it's at least enough to possibly reassure Hot Rod that everything really is going to be okay.